Off-Broadway Theater Review: THE EFFECT (Barrow Street Theatre)

THE EFFECT OF GREAT THEATER

In Lucy Prebble’s captivating two-act, The Effect, crisply directed by David Cromer, 20-somethings Connie (Susannah Flood) and Tristan (Carter Hudson) meet as test subjects in a clinical study of a new anti-depressant. On the surface it seems they would make an unlikely couple — he’s an unemployed free spirit with an unkempt beard, she’s a well-groomed psychology student involved with a much older man — yet immediately there is a spark. But as they start falling in love over the course of the study a question arises: Are they really in love or is the drug simply making them feel like they are?

Exploring notions of consciousness and identity as they relate to the chemistry in our brains, Ms. Prebble takes us on a breathless ride that is emotionally satisfying and philosophically compelling. Are we the sum of our parts or is there more to us? Do our memories define who we are? Does being in love trigger chemical reactions that make us feel a certain way? Or do chemical reactions within us make us experience feelings which we identify as “being in love?”

The debate, which Ms. Prebble takes care to keep personal, and which expands to include issues of efficacy and ethics of psychotropic drugs, the value of negative emotions, the definition of depression, is furthered by Dr. Lorna James (Kati Brazda), the skeptical psychiatrist administering the study, whose emotional investment in her duties appears to be related to her enigmatic relationship with her boss, Dr. Toby Sealey (Steve Key).

Mr. Cromer elicits sharp, dynamic performances from the excellent cast — on the night I attended the well-deserved applause continued into a second curtain call. And Marsha Ginsberg’s spare hospital set, with its big open sterile space, serves well to amplify the characters’ emotional struggles and vulnerabilities. And although I’m not certain that in the end Ms. Prebble supplies the most complete responses to the unsolvable problems she introduces, her dramatic exploration of her subjects is both riveting and fascinating, and leaves one with a lingering feeling of satisfaction.